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Route: Kokopelli Trail (CO, UT)

Location

Colorado,US

Utah,US

Description

The Kokopelli Trail is a wonderful route that goes from Loma, in western Colorado, to Moab, Utah, through spectacular and varied desert landscape. The best estimate of its length (from knowledgeable mountain bikers) is 141 miles. The route is mostly jeep and OHV tracks, with some single track and some paved roads.

"You would think more people would do the Kokopelli, a really nice runnable well defined and well known track." - Paul Pomerory

Paul Pomeroy got FKT activity going on the Kokopelli Trail back in 2002 with a self-supported run of the entire trail in 37h33m. His run report is here.

A couple years later (May 22-23, 2004) Peter Bakwin and Stephanie Ehret did the route in 32h47m41s, supported by Kevin Taverner. This remains the women's FKT. Their run report is below.

David Wakefield went after the FKT May 27-28, 2011. He completed the full route but didn't match the record, running 35h56m19s (supported), as reported below.

Scott Jaime and Nick Pedatella set the current supported FKT of 30h20m58s on March 25-26, 2015. They carried a SPOT Tracker, and recorded a GPS track for the entire trail. Their GPS shows 139.0 miles. Their splits are below.

"The trail is much tougher than the profile would lead you to believe. It's mostly all runnable so saving something for the end is critical, at least that's what our strategy was early on. if you feel like you're working too hard in the first 70 miles, then you are." - Scott Jaime

These are the only 6 people we know of who have run the entire trail in a continuous fashion. There is an unofficial mountain bike race on the route, but we do not report times for this here.

Comments

Tall Climber KevinSat, 04/14/2018 - 09:56pm

Continuing on the thread from the old site... Indeed my attempt ended around 10PM on the 24th. I was unsure if Adam was even going to get to start because he came down with the flu midway through the week. On Wednesday the 21st he called me to back out so I prepared to do a supported solo attempt. My wife was great support on this long run. Adam and I actually started together; I left Adam around Westwater and he dropped a short time later. He ended up doing ~50 miles. The 6PM start time was an hour later than we had intended... Adam worked a half day on Friday and got off a bit later than anticipated.

I felt great and was super positive all the way up to the looooooonnnnnnngggg slog on Polar Mesa. I was pretty wrecked by the time I reached Bull Draw Overlook and was back on the road. Pride definitely kicked in at that point... I couldn't help but think, "I know I can walk in a finish but I don't want to be the slowest ever!" HA! I live in Western Colorado so the trail is super accessible and I'll be giving it another go in the future. My next go will be solo, self-supported.

My efforts ended at the halfway point, Dewey Bridge. I didn't have enough calories to get me to Moab. Learned a lot about the Kokopelli trail, the unsupported discipline, and myself. Will be back again next year, a bit earlier in the Spring for some cooler temperatures.